Yellow squash has little flavor on it’s own. To make the yellow squash tasty I usually broil the squash on both sides till it chars with a light sprinkle of extra virgin olive oil. When it comes out of the oven the squash gets fresh ground sea salt and pepper. Then I added a light sprinkle of the Hawayej spice and now I have more exciting squash!

Hawayej is a Yemenite spice blend that is used for meats, soups, stews and vegetables. It is believed to promote good health.

I looked at many recipes for Hawayej and decided to try Yotam Ottolenghi & Sami Tammy’s recipe since Ottolenghi is considered to be one of the most respected chefs in the world.

Ingredients

1 teaspoon black peppercorns

1 teaspoon coriander seeds

1 1/2 teaspoon cumin seeds

4 whole cloves

1/2 teaspoon ground cardamon

1 1/2 teaspoon turmeric

Heat up a small fry pan with the black peppercorns, coriander, cumin and cloves till fragrant on medium heat for thirty seconds-up to one minute. Remove from heat when cool grind and then stir in the cardamon and turmeric.

Hawayej sure makes yellow squash more interesting. You can bump this up one step further by adding some creamy fresh feta cheese and some fresh chopped parsley.

I was watching The Chew TV Show and Chef Micheal Symon said he serves a pickled chili salad over his steaks at his restaurant. I never thought of pickled chilies with a steak. I usually do something traditional like slow cooked onions or mushrooms. So I thought I’d try it since a had a bunch of Anaheim Chilies that I wanted to do something with. In Michael Symons recipe he uses Jalapeño peppers, Fresno Chilies and Shallots. I used Anaheim Chilies and one large Red Onion. I have to say the pickled chilies and onions are really great with steak. It seemed to lighten the steak up. These chilies would also be great on sandwiches. You might want to give this a try. Use whatever chilies you like!

Ingredients for 8 servings

1 cup white wine vinegar

1 cup rice wine vinegar

1 cup water

2 Tablespoons kosher salt

1/4 cup sugar

1 small onion pealed and sliced

1 head garlic slice off the very top so the cloves are exposed

1 Tablespoon black peppercorns

1 Tablespoon coriander seeds

2 bay leaves

8 oz chilies jalapeno and fresno (they were left whole in his recipe I sliced mine) (I used Anaheim  Chilies)

8 oz shallots sliced thin (I used a red onion)

Directions

Leave your chilies in one sterile container and your shallots in another sterile container. The rest of the ingredients put in a medium sauce pan and bring to boil and then reduce to simmer and let it go till it reduces some. Strain and pour over your chilies and shallots.

Yum a new favorite!

 

 

WOW this taste FORKING Amazing. I have to write it down. This combination is just genius. I was watching Top Chef Master Lorena Garcia on some kind of Chef Competition Show and she mixed lox into her guacamole and served it on a fresh made arepa. Chef Lorena won the battle with this creation and the judges couldn’t stop talking about how great it was. So I did something similar.

I made fresh corn tortillas and just used the recipe that was on my bag of masa flour. Doing a half batch for my first time doing tortillas.

I don’t have a tortilla press and used plastic wrap on both sides of the tortilla and rolled it out the best I could.

30 seconds on each side about tree times in a medium high fry pan. I couldn’t forking get mine round but they came out delicious anyway.

I knew I needed to find a better recipe for tortillas so about a week latter I tried Mark Bittman’s recipe.

I do WARN YOU! This recipe I wouldn’t recommend unless you have a non-stick pan because in a regular pan the tortilla comes out well but it is very hard to clean the pan afterwards. Took me a forking hour to scrub out the black residue.

1 1/2 cup masa harina

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 Tablespoons oil or butter or lard (I used canola oil)

1 cup hot water

Made them the same way and these came out better for me. I didn’t use a press but they came out closer to round, were softer and got nice char marks. (corn tortillas should be served hot and steamy)

I wish this was my first try at tortillas.

From my first batch of tortillas……

I topped them off with about 1 1/2 oz of regular not the best smoked salmon or what we call lox (******lox is a loose term and is actually just salt cured salmon from the belly area that’s easy to make if you live in an area were you can purchase really fresh salmon.)

Avocado slices sprinkled well with fresh lime juice

Grated frozen jalapeno (I keep jalapeños in my freezer)

Grated one small garlic clove

Some chopped scallions

a little fresh cilantro

Topped with another small tortilla

Gosh it really was delicious! I’m surprised I never saw this on a menu anywhere. Who knew the creamy avocado goes so well with lox and all these flavors compliment extremely well. It’s fireworks in the mouth. It’s something really original.

Thanks to Chef Lorena Garcia, I learned from watching her on Bravo TV and got the idea to do what I did.

This sandwich was FORKING AWSOME !

 

 

 

 

I already have a fresh cheese gnocchi recipe published here made with fresh made ricotta cheese that you make yourself. I recently got a great deal on blue cheese so I thought I’d make Blue Cheese Gnocchi. They are very flavorful and do taste very good.  The taste sets them apart from many other gnocchi.

If you never made gnocchi before I recommend that you make my fresh cheese recipe gnocchi first. Even if you don’t make the cheese and purchase cheese you will learn how to make gnocchi better as this recipe is a little harder because the ratio of flour differed.

I sort of regret using the light heirloom beets instead of regular red or golden beets because the regular beets might have been more attractive for this dish.

The hard part for me was deciding on what sauce to prepare with them. I thought that the flavor is powerful so I thought they needed some other flavors and textures for a kind of balance with beets, apples and walnuts.

****************Blue Cheese Gnocchi******************************

Ingredients about 8 servings

10 oz blue cheese – leave out for about an hour so it warms up and gets soft

1 XL egg – beaten

1 1/4 cup + 1/8 cup flour

Water for boiling gnocchi

1 Tablespoon kosher or sea salt – to be added to boiling water

3 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil – for sprinkling on each batch of gnocchi so they don’t stick..(and it also adds another layer of flavor)

Directions

Get your sauce pot filled about 3/4s with water and a Tablespoon of salt on to a medium boil.

In a large bowl add blue cheese, egg and flour and mix well.

hand pinch off one gnocchi and do a tester to make sure you like it because the ingredients do vary depending on the humidity and mostly your cheese. You might need slightly less flour or slightly more flour. I try to make a very light melt in your mouth kind of gnocchi that differs very much from a frozen type. I try to use just enough flour to hold it together.

When you decide you like the gnocchi put about 1/3 of the mixture in a disposable pastry bag with the top tip cut off.

Twist the bottom to hold everything in and squeeze.

either knock off or swat each gnocchi off with your finger until done or add a string to the handle and use the string to cut off the gnocchi. After the gnocchi float for a few minutes take them out with a slotted spoon and give them a sprinkle of extra virgin olive oil so they don’t stick.

For this recipe I used sheet pans to hold the gnocchi in a single layer to make sure they wouldn’t stick.

*SAVE your gnocchi water because it will be used to used to cook the beets!

The gnocchi are done and now you can put them aside and prepare the walnuts.

***********************For The Walnuts******************************

Ingredients

cup walnuts

2 cups water

1 Tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

1 Tablespoon sugar

1/2 teaspoon kosher or sea salt

1/4 teaspoon cayenne

fresh cracked black pepper a few cracks

Directions

Put your walnuts and water in a microwave safe bowl and cover with plastic wrap.

Microwave three minutes.

Uncover and drain the brown water you just released some of the bitterness.

Rub the walnuts dry with a paper towel.

Now place them in a small bowl add remaining ingredients mix well and place the nuts in a single layer on a baking sheet in a 350 degree oven for 15 minutes.

Leave out to cool and put to the side.

 

*****************For The Roasted Beet Sauce*************************

Ingredients****** (note I originally made double of this recipe and found that I had 2x of what I needed so I cut recipe in 1/2 so you’d have the right amount of sauce. Feel fee to double because you can freeze it and use for another time over chicken, more blue cheese gnocchi or something else)

1 1/2 large Beets ( I purchased my beets at the farmers market and got the mostly white candy stripe ones that only turn slightly pink) Any beet will do.

2 medium apples pealed, cored and cut in cubes

1/2 small sweet onion

1 garlic cloves

1 carrot

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 Tablespoon kosher or sea salt

1/2 banana pepper (or any pepper with heat that you like)

1/2 cup apple cider vinegar

1/2 teaspoon thyme

about 1/2 the water saved from boiling the gnocchi

neutral non-stick spray

1/2 medium sweet onion – chopped

1 celery ribs – pealed (like you do a carrot)  – chopped small

1small or a 1/2 garlic clove – grated

splash red wine

1/4 cup scallions chopped

Fresh ground salt and pepper to taste.

 

Directions

Put your apple on a non-stick sprayed  baking sheet and roast 30 minutes and put away.

Get the beets, carrot,  garlic clove, banana pepper, 1/2 c sugar, 1/2T salt, apple cider vinegar , thyme and fill about 3/4s with the water saved from boiling the gnocchi  into a pan and roast for about 2 hours.

I waited till the next day to finish but you can do the same day.

When the contents are cool enough to handle-

Toss out the carrot, onion, garlic and banana pepper.

KEEP THE LIQUID and peal the beets and cut in cubes and put the liquid and cut beets to the side.

Get a large sauce pan on medium high heat and spray with non-stick spray.

Heat up your celery, garlic and onion till soft.

Add the wine and some reserved liquid and let reduce a little and in the mean time gather HALF your beets and HALF your apples and blend them with some of the reserved liquid up to thicken and flavor your sauce. Add fresh ground s&p to taste.

To serve heat sauce up with the apples and beets and near the end add the gnocchi and before serving add top with the walnuts and some scallions.

This really came out delicious.  It’s something unique but really good. Give it a try using any color of beet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s easy to prepare delicious food when you use full fat ingredients. But it’s a challenge to create delicious foods that are reduced in fat. Cream Cheese, Mayonnaise and Sour Cream  are usually the base to most artichoke dips. They all have high fat contents and are high in calories.

3 ounces of mayonnaise is about 142 calories and 29.76g fat

3 ounces of sour cream is about 156 calories and 15.12g fat

3 ounces of cream cheese is about 306 calories and 30.36g fat

while

Silken Tofu is only

3 ounces of silken tofu is 50 calories and 2.5g fat

For my base I used silken Nigari Tofu. It only has 2.5 g Fat per 3 ounces. That is nearly fat free! It’s a health food. It has almost no flavor so it’s a blank canvas that you can do a lot with it.

I infused the artichoke with flavors. (********see yesterday’s post or just type in artichoke in the search for my directions.) The dip is seasoned to perfection. If the directions are followed exactly your dip should come out delicious.

Ingredients for about 10 servings

8 oz artichoke scrapping (what you scrap off from the leaves after cooking)

11.5 (package) Silken Tofu Nigari

1/2 cup (scant)  parmesan – grated

1 small lemon – just the juice

1/4 cup scallions – chopped

1 Tablespoon Dijon

2 teaspoons garlic confit (I do this in batches and it last for weeks. I roast garlic with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil covered at 350 degrees F for about an hour. The garlic turns sweet and it gets whipped up with a stick blender and is a smooth butter like texture I like to use in cold food)

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

1 teaspoon kosher or sea salt

Directions

Just combine and blend.

Nobody will ever guess the base is healthy tofu. This really came out delicious!

 

I seen baby purple artichokes before but this is my first time coming across full grown purple artichokes so I picked two up.

I treated them the same way I’d treat a green artichoke because they were large. I do know the baby purples can be eaten raw. I do note that after cooking the artichokes turn green.

So I started by soaking them in a gallon plastic bag upside down so all the dirt would fall out.  I peeled the steam and sliced the very end off and trimmed them.

I cooked them on the stove top with……..

Carrot, 1/2 Onion, Lemon, 3 Garlic Cloves, 2 tiny Bay leaves, 1/2 a Banana Pepper and instead of salt a heaping Tablespoon of Vegetable Base. I covered the vegetables with water and brought to a boil and reduced to simmer for about an hour.

When the artichokes were cool enough to handle I decided I wanted to prepare my two artichokes two ways. I scraped out the leaves to make Reduced Fat Artichoke Dip and I used the Button and Stem to Fry in Panko and Parmesan Cheese in Butter.

It sounds like a lot of work but it only took me about 15 minutes to scape the two artichoke’s leaves.

The leaves near the choke have almost nothing to scape off so I just remove those leaves and scrape out the choke.

I cut the buttons in half and used the stems.

I used 1/4 cup parmesan shredded

1/2 cup panko

1 egg beaten

pinch granulated garlic

fresh crushed sea salt and black pepper

and just fried them in

4 Tablespoons of non-salted butter

Sprinkled some parmesan cheese and scallions on the top.

In a medium bowl combine the panko, shredded cheese, garlic salt and pepper. In a small bowl is your beaten egg. Dip the artichoke pieces in the egg and coat with crump and repeat. Then fry in butter on medium heat. Optional – Top them with either scallions or parsley and some more parmesan cheese.

These came out FORKING GREAT! The button is the best part of the artichoke so you should do something rich and indulgent with it.

Out of the artichoke scrapping I made Reduced Fat Artichoke Dip that’s made with a secret ingredient. NOBODY would ever guess that this is reduced fat. This sure doesn’t taste like reduced fat at all.

I’ll post this recipe tomorrow.

I read about this bread in Saveur Magazine. They say it’s a popular street food in Ragusa Sicily. It’s a thin dough that can be filled with a variety of fillings and is folded into a lasagna style loaf. It should be served when the loaf is still warm.

I can’t find the caciocavallo cheese that’s recommended for the recipe in my area so I substituted sliced provolone.

I never made Scaccia before so I followed Saveur’s recipe till it failed me.

I followed the dough recipe exactly and my ingredients wouldn’t form into a dough. It stayed like sand. So I added an extra Table of extra virgin olive oil and still the dough was no good. but was closer to dough. (picture below)

So I slowly added a 1/4 cup of warm water till it turned into a dough ball. The recipe worked after that. I note I don’t know if you will have the same problem with the recipe because I live in Arizona where the air is very dry and our water is very hard and that might be a factor in why many baking recipes don’t work out as written.

I think I can tweak the recipe slightly for next time. I might increase the tomatoes just slightly by adding just slightly more tomato solids and increase the cheese by 1-2 ounces using a blend of cheese. I do note if I used the  caciocavollo cheese I might have gotten a more cheesy filling.

The Scaccia came out delicious and I can’t wait to do variations of this recipe I got a million ideas.

Below is the recipe and I also included what I added to it if you find your ingredients  not coming out into dough the same way mine did.

Ingredients makes about 6 servings

1 1/4 teaspoon sugar (1/4 + 1t latter in the recipe for the sauce)

1/4 teaspoon active dry yeast

2 cups durum wheat semolina flour

2 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil (note I needed to use a total of three T)

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

all purpose flour for dusting

2 cups whole pealed canned tomatoes in juice

1 garlic clove finely chopped

1/2 cup loosely packed basil -chopped

fresh cracked pepper to taste

fresh crushed salt to taste

8oz caciocavallo cheese

Directions

In a large bowl whisk together 1/4 teaspoon of sugar, the yeast and 1/2 cup plus 2 Tablespoons lukewarm water. Let it stand until foamy about 10 minutes. Stir in semolina flour, i Tablespoon olive oil and 1/2 teaspoon of salt until the dough comes together. Scrape the dough into a lightly floured surface and kneed until smooth, about 8  minutes. Transfer the dough to bowl and cover with plastic wrap and let it stand at room temperature about 2 hours until the dough doubles.(******note I added an additional 1 Tablespoon olive oil and 1/4 cup warm water that I added at the end of making the dough -I don’t know if you will need to add additional liquid)

Now make your tomato sauce. Tomatoes with juice get blended till smooth. In a small sauce pan add 1 Tablespoon olive oil over medium heat add garlic and cook tim it begins to brown and then add tomatoes and the one teaspoon of sugar. Bring to simmer and let it simmers till it reduces a bit. Remove from heat and add basil and well season it with salt and pepper.

Heat your oven to 450 degrees F and line a 9×5 loaf pan with parchment paper. Place the dough on a lightly floured surface and roll into a 26×18 inch rectangle.

Follow my pictures.

 

Here you bring the right side over.

Now bring up the bottom.

Now place in you parchment lined loaf pan and pierce the top with a fork.

I folded parchment over the top.

Put in your 450 degree oven about an hour. I left mine in for 70 minutes. The Scaccia should be dark brown on the top and charred on edges.

When it comes out of the oven you need to pop it out of the pan on to a cooling rack. After 10 minutes turn it over and let it cool another 10 minutes and serve it warm.

Something fun and tasty.

My husband was very sad when this bread got finished. He said that I gotta forking make four loaves next time.

I already posted recipes for easy microwave potato chips and carrot chips so I wondered if I could make zucchini chips the same way and yes it works. They come out light as air and are tasty. They are very light and delicate. Not sturdy like the carrot and potato chips. Zucchini chips would be a great substitute to croutons on a salad.

For all of these microwave vegetable chip recipes I use a Corning Ware Bowl to cook them on.

Ingredients for two large servings

1 washed zucchini sliced thin on a mandolin

fresh cracked sea salt

non-stick cooking spray

Directions

Spread out your zucchini slices on a couple paper towels and blot dry.

Lightly spray your bowl with non-stick spray and blot it a little so it’s not too wet.

Now arrange your zucchini.

Depending on size of your zucchini and microwaves do very they might need three to four minutes to look like this.

Now remove the delicate zucchini slices onto a paper towel or plate and your bowl will be wet so you need to wipe the moister out. Now put your zucchini back in but on the other side and in 2 or 3 more minutes in the microwave you will have chips. I lightly salt them when they are done.

Tasty and light as air. Easy to woof down.

This is a very healthy light eggplant dip that’s forking delicious. This will be among one of the best Baba Ghanoush Dips you ever tried.

Ingredients for about 4 servings

1 eggplant -(mine was on the large side)  peeled, roasted, broiled, , chilled and drained

3- Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 lemon (just the fresh squeezed juice)

1 teaspoon (heaping) tehini

1 teaspoon garlic confit (garlic cloves drizzled with extra virgin olive oil and roasted about an hour at 350 degrees F till soft and whip so it turns like a butter)

1/2 teaspoon liquid smoke

1/4 teaspoon cumin

1/2 cup water

fresh ground sea salt to taste

Aleppo Pepper to taste

optional teaspoon of sugar

This is an easy way to make great Baba Ghanoush the healthy and tasty eggplant dip. Just roast up a peeled and cubed eggplant covered with foil sprinkled with lemon juice and oil at 350 degrees until done. Then low broil the eggplant till charred. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate till cool or over night and drain liquids. The liquid is bitter and make sure you remove it. At this point you should recook the eggplant again but this time just put it in a microwave safe bowl covered with plastic wrap and microwave it about three minutes. Remove liquids again. Add remaining ingredients and blend to your liking and enjoy. You just might have the most delicious Baba Ghanoush you ever tried.

*****For SPECIAL Occasion Baba Ghanoush****

Heat up a charcoal BBQ and purchase WHITE EGGPLANTS that you peel and brush with olive oil.  Cut them in slices, BBQ, and make char marks. You won’t need the liquid smoke or the sugar. This will be delicious the absolute best ever. The white eggplant is the best tasting sweetest eggplant. You won’t need to do all the draining and recooking either if you use a white eggplant on a charcoal BBQ.